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Javelin gold and bronze for Australia

John Salvado

Every night for the past month, Kim Mickle has enjoyed a gold medal dream.

The reality proved to be every bit as good.

After recovering from the crushing disappointment of missing the London Olympic final, Mickle was rewarded for two years of consistent excellence with gold in the javelin at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Mickle blew the competition wide open with a monster throw of 65.96m in the second round and never looked like being headed.

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Two-time defending champion Sunette Viljoen from South Africa (63.19m) and young Australian Kelsey-Lee Roberts (62.95m) both saved their best throws for last to claim the minor medals.

Luckless Australian Kathryn Mitchell was fourth.

Mickle's big breakthrough on the global stage came last year when she finished second at the world championships in Moscow.

But until Wednesday night, gold had proved frustratingly elusive.

"I've dreamt of this moment, I've visualised it for the last month," she said.

"Every single night I've pictured myself on top of the dais so I hope I don't wake up in 10 minutes and it's a dream.

"It's the way I scripted it in my head so for it to actually happen the way I felt it should have is pretty sweet."

Mickle believed she was capable of an even bigger throw than her gold medal-winning effort of 65.96m, only to fall for the trap of trying too hard.

"With javelin it's a perfection sport so if you go hard and get something slightly wrong it's going to go nowhere and that's what happened with my last four throws," she said.

"But I felt comfortable with the distance I had with my second so I thought `why not?'

"If you're going to have a go at something, have a go at it now and that's what I did."

Mickle made light of a painful turf toe injury on her pivot foot, although she was starting to pay the price afterwards as the local anaesthetic wore off.

Apart from the javelin, there were a flood of fourths for Australia at Hampden Park on Wednesday night.

Defending champion Fabrice Lapierre strained a hamstring in the first round of the men's long jump.

But after sitting out the next two jumps, Lapierre gritted his teeth and returned to the competition.

His best leap of 8.00m came in the first round as he finished just out of the medals.

Englishman Greg Rutherford - who denied Australian Mitchell Watt the Olympic title in London two years ago - won gold with 8.20m.

Madeline Heiner and Genevieve LaCaze took the battle up to the all-conquering Kenyans in the women's 3000m steeplechase.

Purity Kirui led a Kenyan medal sweep, with Heiner and LaCaze crossing the line in fourth and fifth places respectively, with both recording personal bests.

Youngster Sophie Stanwell racked up a personal best tally of 5754 points to finish fourth in the heptathlon.

Stanwell was one of the few Australians to offer words of support to suspended head coach Eric Hollingsworth, saying his background as a decathlete had been a big help to her.

Jeff Riseley looked to have missed a berth in the 800m final in the worst possible way after being shoved across two lanes by Canadian opponent Brandon MacBride with one lap to run.

Riseley recovered well enough to finish a close fifth, although his semi-final time would have seen him just miss out on a spot in Thursday's title race.

But before Riseley had a chance to appeal, the race referee reviewed the footage and decided the interference was so severe that he had to be added to the field for the final.